Nuts and Bolts
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Disclaimer: I haven't checked the links on this page for a few years (literally!) I don't know how many of them have changed.
I shoot a Canon Rebel XS, although a few of my first photos were shot with the old war horse, a loaner Pentax K1000. (The Rebel XS has since been replaced by the Rebel G, essentially the same camera with automatic night modes, auto bracketting, and a 3-point focusing system). Generally, I am satisfied with the Rebel. Occasionally I'm irritated by my lenses' lack of a depth of field scale, forcing me to guess my f-stop for depth of field. Since I usually like to shoot as wide open as I can, however, this usually isn't a problem. The auto-depth of field option is useful when I'm presented with a tricky situation. Similarly, although infrared film is far out of my budget, the lack of an IR correction marking would also make shooting IR difficult. For my personal work, I prefer to shoot on full manual. When shooting for the Mac Weekly, the shutter and aperture priority modes are great, except for back lit situations. The AF system can be a bit touchy with macro situations or busy scenes or a lot of activity, but is generally accurate, although it is sometimes easier to stop down a bit and manual focus in low light. The only full-auto mode I'll use is the sports mode, for it's continuos focusing feature. At 1 fps, the Rebel requires a decent sense of timing. Finally, with it's light-weight prism (I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't glass) occasionally something will be captured in the periphery of the frame that didn't show in the viewfinder, most often in macro situations.
I own two Cannon EF lesnes, and one Tamrom lens.
The Cannon EF 35-80 1:4-5.6 USM is a joy to use in close situations, going wide enough for general shots and zooming enough for some detail. With the attachment of close-up filters, it also serves as a macro lens. The USM (ultra-sonic motor) is fast focusing and quiet. Whenever possible I use this lens for most of my Weekly work.
The Cannon EF 50 1:1.8 lacks the 35-80's USM motor, so it focuses more slowly. I like the fixed focal length, however, and the fact that it opens wider than the 35-80. I mostly use the 50 for personal use, when I'm shooting a scene that turns out to be around 50mm with one of the zooms or when I want to force myself to compose a shot.
The Tamrom 28-200 1:3.8-5.6 is an amazingly versatile lens. I generally use it for the zoom capability, since a minimum focusing distance of 6.9 feet doesn't quite do the wide angle justice in many situations. The motor is fairly quiet, although a bit slow to respond, which can be frustrating when shooting sports. When shooting an assignment that I'm not sure what kind of situation I'll find myself in, the 28-200 is usually attached to the Rebel.
My paper of choice Ilford Multigrade IV Pearl. I'm biased toward Ilford since it's what I started learning photography with. Multigrade IV is capable of deep blacks, sparkling whites, and subtle textures. It reacts well with the Ilford Rapid Fixer, which seems to tend to clean up and darken blacks while making whites a little more intense. When I print, I aim for good blacks and oh-so-slightly-grey whites when the paper comes out of the developer because of this property of the fixer.
I have also used Kodak paper on occasion. I don't care for it's color tone, and I don't think it holds detail as well. Although it may have been the chemicals I was using, it also turns a funky brown when flashed to produce the Sabiter effect. Although I like warm-tone, single grade paper, none is readily available to me.
My developer is Ilford Paper Developer, and the stop bath is Kodak Indicator Stop Bath. Dilutions are the manufactures recommendations. I generally don't time development, letting the paper sit until it's fully developed. Similarly, stopping and fixing are variable as well. All are used at whatever room temperature is. No toners of any kind are at my disposal.
My film is generally whatever the Mac Weekly has in the darkroom, usually Kodak T-Max 400. I've found T-Max is great for pushing to 1600. Even in low light situations in which it is under-exposed an additional stop or so, it performs well without an excess of grain.
Personally, I'm partial to Tri-X 400. It's isn't as forgiving as T-Max is, but I like the extra grain. It performs well at 800, and starts to lose detail at 1600. I think Tri-X deals with overexposure and pulling to 200 better than T-Max does, which develops blocked highs more readily.
Tri-X's range can be expanded to 1600 via water development, in which normal development time is doubled. Developer is used for one minute with ten seconds of agitation, and the poured out and saved on the side. The film is then immersed in water without agitation for a minute. The water is drained, and the developer is poured on again and so on, until the time is up. The film is stopped and fixed normally. What happens is that some of the developer remains stuck to the film as it soaks in the water. The black areas of the negative (light on the print) quickly exhaust the developer, while the light areas (dark on the print) continue developing. In this way, detail can be drawn out of the shadows and contrast expanded. It would be advisable to err on the side of underexposing the film slightly rather than exposing for the shadows in a very high contrast situation avoid blocking of the high values.
Recently the Weekly has purchased PS125 and P3200. I haven't shot the 125 enough to comment, but I love the 3200's extreme grain, especially for night scenes. Although I generally, don't shoot color, I prefer Kodak Royal Gold's saturation.
I use T-Max developer, with Kodak Indicator stop bath and Ilford Rapid Fixer, all at room temp.
I have a Ambico 54" 2 lb. tripod. My lenses have Haze-1 filters for protection. I have close up filters (+1,+2,+3) from Hoya. In the darkroom, we have a Besler enlarger and Ilford variable contrast filters. I also have a broken Nikon FM2 with a 50mm 1:1.8 Nikkor and 70-210 1:2.8-4.0 Vivitar Series 1 lenses.
All pictures were scanned on Apple's One Scanner using Ofoto 2.0. In Ofoto, scans were straightened, sharpened, focused and usually auto-adjusted for shadows and saved as TIFFs. They were resized and sharpened in Adobe Photoshop 2.5. Levels were auto-adjusted. Other tonal adjustments were made as necessary. No re-touching took place. Files were saved as JPEGs at maximum compression. Other than necessary tonal adjustments, the pictures were not retouched in anyway, despite a strong desire to burn the detail lost in scanning back into a lot of white backgrounds! Ugh! >:-{
Cameras